Title: Blink
Artist: SkyMember
Producers: SkyMember Presents
Link: Available At Your Favorite Murphy’s Magic Dealer
Retail Price: $99.95 USD
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Length of Video: Minutes (approx)
Includes:
· 5 Blink Metal Dog Tags
· Ball Chain style necklace
· Instructional Video on USB Memory Card
· Velvet Pouch
· Silicon Dog Tag Holders
A magician borrows a spectator’s cell phone and searches for a tattoo design on the internet. The tattoo design is then magically transferred from the phone onto the magicians blank dog tag style necklace charm and can be handed out for inspection.
Blink is one of those effects that looks cool in the physical prop aesthetic but when you actually break it down and get into what it can do it starts to lose its punch. When I saw it for the first time I was impressed. The tutorial video is the first thing you see when you open the magnetically sealed black box. The video comes on a credit card sized custom memory stick the size of a business card. Tucked away under that layer are the actual props themselves. Five nice metal dog tags, four of them have an image laser etched onto them, and the fifth one being blank. Included is a soft velvet pouch with rubber cases for the dog tags and a chain to put them on. The chain is pretty cheap all things considered.
Unfortunately for me the visual aesthetics is where the coolness of this product ends. The magic trick just doesn’t stack up to the hype. For starters this trick is highly dependent on the use of a cell phone to achieve the magic. At first I thought this was going to be a nice modernization of the Koran Medallion but instead it’s more of a limited effect than that. Between the patter, and the image selection process, the image transfer from electronic device to object just lacks a punch. It feels like a lot of work for a limited payoff. Sure you can force up to four different images, but honestly a nail writer and a dog tag with a sticker on it could give you the same kind of effect, cheaper looking, but a wider range of possibilities than this and all sans cell phone device; which I hate cell phone magic tricks anyways. Now add in the fact that this trick will cost you nearly a hundred dollars and that puts the final nail in the “nope” coffin for me.
So is Blink practical for use? I suppose the answer to that question greatly depends on what you want to accomplish with your magic in both effect and esthetic. For what it is, it works. It can be done close up or strolling. It’s a nice piece for street magicians because it has a modern “urban” feel to it given what the props are. It lets you do magic with an image “randomly” selected on a cell phone and that kind of technomancy will appeal to some people. The dependency of the cell phone use does make it rough to do stage work with it though. So I’m left feeling like this maybe a good trick for some people. I’m not one of them.
Overall I feel like the magic potential offered by this trick is far overshadowed by other similar effects (Like the Koran Medallion) and for cheaper. For half the cost you could get a very nice looking prop that will give you a wider range of play than what you could achieve with this product. It looks pretty, but the magic just wasn’t there for me on this one.
When I give my product scores below I am measuring them on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 Being absolute the worst score possible, and 10 being the absolute best, making a score of five average. The four points that I grade upon is Product Quality, Teaching Quality, Sound & Video Quality and Overall Quality.
Product Quality: 3
Pretty props, but way over priced. The magic is limited, and other mentalism effects do a better job, as well as being more practical and versatile, than this effect.
Teaching Quality: 8
The video is easy to follow and learn from. Awesome packaging of the video too.
Video & Sound Quality: 9
The video and sound are both good.
Overall Quality: 4
This product looks sweet, but fell short of being useful for me after I got it opened up and played with. I could possibly rework the handling and find a presentation that works for me but it won’t use the cell phone, and by the end would be a completely different effect. Not sure if I want to devote that kind of time to this product or not.
Have a product you want reviewed? Want to see if it will stand up to the Draven Seal of Approval? Contact me directly at draven@williamdraven.com to find out how your product could be on the next Draven Reviews! Don't forget to like my blog where all my reviews are posted at www.williamdraven.wordpress.com.
Artist: SkyMember
Producers: SkyMember Presents
Link: Available At Your Favorite Murphy’s Magic Dealer
Retail Price: $99.95 USD
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Length of Video: Minutes (approx)
Includes:
· 5 Blink Metal Dog Tags
· Ball Chain style necklace
· Instructional Video on USB Memory Card
· Velvet Pouch
· Silicon Dog Tag Holders
A magician borrows a spectator’s cell phone and searches for a tattoo design on the internet. The tattoo design is then magically transferred from the phone onto the magicians blank dog tag style necklace charm and can be handed out for inspection.
Blink is one of those effects that looks cool in the physical prop aesthetic but when you actually break it down and get into what it can do it starts to lose its punch. When I saw it for the first time I was impressed. The tutorial video is the first thing you see when you open the magnetically sealed black box. The video comes on a credit card sized custom memory stick the size of a business card. Tucked away under that layer are the actual props themselves. Five nice metal dog tags, four of them have an image laser etched onto them, and the fifth one being blank. Included is a soft velvet pouch with rubber cases for the dog tags and a chain to put them on. The chain is pretty cheap all things considered.
Unfortunately for me the visual aesthetics is where the coolness of this product ends. The magic trick just doesn’t stack up to the hype. For starters this trick is highly dependent on the use of a cell phone to achieve the magic. At first I thought this was going to be a nice modernization of the Koran Medallion but instead it’s more of a limited effect than that. Between the patter, and the image selection process, the image transfer from electronic device to object just lacks a punch. It feels like a lot of work for a limited payoff. Sure you can force up to four different images, but honestly a nail writer and a dog tag with a sticker on it could give you the same kind of effect, cheaper looking, but a wider range of possibilities than this and all sans cell phone device; which I hate cell phone magic tricks anyways. Now add in the fact that this trick will cost you nearly a hundred dollars and that puts the final nail in the “nope” coffin for me.
So is Blink practical for use? I suppose the answer to that question greatly depends on what you want to accomplish with your magic in both effect and esthetic. For what it is, it works. It can be done close up or strolling. It’s a nice piece for street magicians because it has a modern “urban” feel to it given what the props are. It lets you do magic with an image “randomly” selected on a cell phone and that kind of technomancy will appeal to some people. The dependency of the cell phone use does make it rough to do stage work with it though. So I’m left feeling like this maybe a good trick for some people. I’m not one of them.
Overall I feel like the magic potential offered by this trick is far overshadowed by other similar effects (Like the Koran Medallion) and for cheaper. For half the cost you could get a very nice looking prop that will give you a wider range of play than what you could achieve with this product. It looks pretty, but the magic just wasn’t there for me on this one.
When I give my product scores below I am measuring them on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 Being absolute the worst score possible, and 10 being the absolute best, making a score of five average. The four points that I grade upon is Product Quality, Teaching Quality, Sound & Video Quality and Overall Quality.
Product Quality: 3
Pretty props, but way over priced. The magic is limited, and other mentalism effects do a better job, as well as being more practical and versatile, than this effect.
Teaching Quality: 8
The video is easy to follow and learn from. Awesome packaging of the video too.
Video & Sound Quality: 9
The video and sound are both good.
Overall Quality: 4
This product looks sweet, but fell short of being useful for me after I got it opened up and played with. I could possibly rework the handling and find a presentation that works for me but it won’t use the cell phone, and by the end would be a completely different effect. Not sure if I want to devote that kind of time to this product or not.
Have a product you want reviewed? Want to see if it will stand up to the Draven Seal of Approval? Contact me directly at draven@williamdraven.com to find out how your product could be on the next Draven Reviews! Don't forget to like my blog where all my reviews are posted at www.williamdraven.wordpress.com.